Colorado Books

Glad that Kip Carey kept up the tradition of this informative book! I have had a number of older editions by (Jim Kelly)and now glad to get the new updated version.

In the historical profession the term "Presentism" denotes writing a history book or article using the values of the present to judge the events of the past. For instance, apologists for the Confederacy--called neo-Confederates--have attempted to rewrite Civil War history. They attempt to prove--from their modern perspective--that slavery was wrong and had nothing to do with the outbreak of the Civil War because the "noble" leaders of the Confederacy could not have fought for so evil a cause. Much better to claim that they fought for states rights. Similar attitudes damn Presidents Washington and Jefferson for holding slaves despite the fact that abolition was an idea that had barely appeared in the American consciousness of their time. Similarly, other "presentists" damn the whites for taking land from the Indians at a time when taking land from aboriginal inhabitants any where in the world was then the norm. One wonders what sins our generation will be condemned for two or three centuries in the future because we did not have the wisdom to see that far ahead.

In this vein, R.C. Gordon-McCutchan, as editor of "Kit Carson: Indian Fighter or Indian Killer" has collected essays from modern scholars who have done their best to place Carson in his correct time and place. In short these authors have tried to let Carson live by the standards of the mid-19th Century rather than those of the 20th (the book was published in 1996).

Carson lived in a time and place where, since 1607, the Navajo raided first the Spanish, then Mexicans and finally the Americans. During this long period the Navajo also raided the resident Hopi, Pueblo, and Zuni, whose urban-agricultureal life produced a wealth worth stealing. There is some irony in the fact that both the archaeological and historical evidence clearly shows the Navajo were themselves invaders of the area.

The Americans were simply another group to raid as were any other non Navajos of the area. Kit Carson, as a man of the 19th Century, was in reality just carrying on an established pattern, and he did it, according to the research in this book, in a remarkably--for the time-- humane manner. The Navajo rendidtions of his cruelty are mainly, according to this book, legends that were spawned in the 1970 through the 1990s. They were not part of the Navajo opinion of the 1860s,

Timothy R. Roberts Ph.D (Univesity of Missouri 1976)

It may appear odd that there has been no synthetc history of Hispanics in Colorado, a state with a large Spanish-surnamed population and a Spanish name. Part of the reason for this is that there are actually two Hispanic Colorados. One is in the southern part of the state, a place ecologically and culturally more a part of northern New Mexico than the mountain West. When the Colorado Territory was formed in 1859, surveyors simply drew a rectangle around Denver forming the future state from Kansas, Utah and New Mexico territories. As a consequence those New Mexicans, whose roots date back to eighteenth-century Spanish days and who had been settling the San Luis Valley since the early 1850s, found themselves part of Colorado. Then, as irrigation facilitated the rise of the sugar beet industry around Fort Collins and the South Platte Valley, more and more Mexicans migrated from the interior of Mexico to find jobs there. Beginning as a trickle around the turn of the century, thousands came to Colorado during World War I and the 1920s. While the New Mexican Coloradans who were displaced from ththeir lands often mingled with these recent arrivals in the agricultural fields, and mines and factories of Trinidad, Walsenburg and Pueblo, they understood themselve to be different from the new arrivals from Mexico. Indeed, the "Spanish Americans," as they increasingly called themselves, experienced little prejudice in Colorado until the larger numbers of Indo-Hispano Mexicans began to threaten the lily-white future of places like Denver and Fort Collins. By the 1920s, often barred from restaurants and hotels, the Spanish Americans, quite like German Jews disliking the more rustic Russian Jews and "lace Irish" recoiling at "shanty Irish," increasingly distanced themselves from their southern brethren whom they often blamed for bringing segregation and discrimination. (...)These issues of ongoing mestizaje, or mixing, of cultural dynamism, and the diversity of experiences, spiritualities and political perspectives should be central to future chronicles of Colorado Hispanics. While it may be that the Boulder/Aspen/Broncos lifestyles are associated with the glamour of our state, it is actually the hidden histories of Hispanics, workers, cow punchers, farm wives, community activists and all the rest of those concealed in history that give Colorado its special, and most meaningful past. -Doug Monroy, Professor of History and Director of the Hulbert Center for Southwestern Studies

This survey of hispanic folk music of the Rio Grande may be regionally specific, but it will prove essential to any student of Hispanic music and provides a wide-ranging history which examines the religious music from 16th-century Spain, Mexican folk tunes, and melodies which are native to the Rio Grande region. Songs appear in Spanish and English and the book includes excellent black and white photos and historical notes.

This is just a quick history of one of Colorado's great old mining towns - also home to the famous cannibal Alfred Packer ("there were only 4 Democrats in this county, and you, you SOB, ate 3 of them" - the Judge). Complete with wonderful old churches, Victorian style homes, fishing, camping, and great restaurants and people, Lake City is a must-see when touring Colorado. It's one of my favorite places on the planet.

"Landscapes in India" is a book of marvels, richly illustrated by 73 color plates and many additional maps and photos. Author Amita Sinha traces Indian spiritual beliefs through some 3,000 years, showing how deeply rooted they are in the trees, hills, rivers, and caves of the subcontinent. In turn, the landscape has been humanized and embellished by the remarkable art, architecture, and landscape design that nature inspired. From the many "ghats," or stairs, built to give access to the Ganges and other sacred rivers, to the magnificently detailed shrines that sprang up nearby, to entire cities designed as mandalas, the primal human need to form sacred bonds with the natural world is clearly interpreted through the author's images and text. In conclusion, Sinha takes on the pressing problem of managing and preserving the bounty of India's cultural landscapes. She also makes a case for the usefulness of traditional housing and settlement design that will resonate with New Urbanists in the western world. I've always been too intimidated by the sheer magnitude and diversity of India to have the courage to visit. This book has given me the powerful tool of "reading the landscape" in order to find underlying unity, and penetrate beyond the shallow view of India as another exotic stop on the itinerary. See you there!

Larry Walker has a great batting average over his career. I was surprised to learn that he was a hockey player too. The book has a lot of fun facts. I really enjoyed reading about this Canadian Rocky.

Clinton Miller age: 8

For anyone interested in the history of Leadville and Colorado's mining days, this book is a must read. Edward Blair has extensively researched Leadville's rambunctious past, detailing the history of the region and the fascinating people who lived there. Blair paints a vivid, moving portrait of the Colorado boomtown and includes a treasure trove of photographs. The volume has the appearance and layout of a college textbook. It has been an invaluable source of information to me in my own research.

The author is an expert on the history of Leadville, Colorado and of this ice palace. It's amazing that they could build out of ice a building you could have ballrooms inside of and restaurants and all. The original photos from the 1800s add to the book as do the lists by name of people who signed the visitors log - I'm into genealogy and looked for ancestors' names who may have been there in 1896. Names are in an index, so easy to find. The Elks (B.P.O.E.) visited as a group - I hadn't know they'd been around so long. There was a German day and an Irish day and Bikers riding in. There was ice skating and tobogganing. So, the book begins with the interesting history from planning to completion, but also the fun events and photos of those events are described after that.

Anyone interersted in Colorado history, railroads, genealogy, ice sculpture, 1800s photographs, or partying on a "grand scale" would love to read this book. I gave this book to my sisters for Christmas and to a friend for birthday gift.

Stephen covers the birth of a gold and silver boom town from the first prospects with a gold pan in a freezing mountain stream to the discovery of silver in "worthless black sands" to the greatest modern mines in the world. He documents the joys and sorrows of the miners and their families, the riches made and lives lost. He covers the details of mining - from individual gold panning and sluicing to two-man candlestick lit tunnels to modern corporate production mines. He describes hand-drilling of rock with doublejack and steel and continues to today's compressed air drills. He documents the use of black powder, dynamite and modern explosives - and the risks and deaths caused by their misuse. He tells of burros, mules and electric haulage trains. He does this all from the viewpoint of someone who has been there and done that. He has prospected in freezing Alaskan streams and done hardrock mining beneath deserts and alpine meadows. Stephen knows mining inside and out - literally. This book is more than a history of one Colorado boom town, it is a history of Western hardrock mining and the men and women who loved, lived and died mining.